Campus, city bus services receive grants

Fuel prices forced public transportation throughout Bloomington and IU’s campus to cut back on services. Now both Bloomington Transit and IU Campus Bus Service will receive federal grants, but the new money won’t be used to fill gas tanks.

Last week, Congressman Baron Hill, D-9th, approved a grant of $915,618 in federal funds for the Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation. Hill also approved a $594,000 grant for the IU Campus Bus Service.

Bloomington Transit will use the funding to design and operate environmental improvements to the downtown transit facility, which no longer accommodates the number of buses and riders. The facility, located at Washington and Fourth streets, was built in 1987.

“With our ridership growth, with the expansion of our service, with the volume and number of buses we’re operating, we have outgrown that location down there,” said Lew May, Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation general manager.

IU Campus Bus Service will also use the money to improve facilities.

The grant money will be used by the IU Campus Bus Service to improve the “ride and park” area on 17th and Dunn streets.

Improvements to the area include a waiting area that will include public restrooms, said Kent McDaniel, executive director for the bus services. The area will also be paved and have traffic lights.

Both transportation services agree the renovations are long overdue.

May and McDaniel said the grant awarded to them had to be used on the specific projects they were given, instead of for purchasing gas.

Throughout the past 21 years, the Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation has worked to keep up with growing ridership. Although the downtown location is still functional, the corporation sees the need for improvements to provide for future growth.

“There is a need for an expanded facility,” May said. “One that will give us the ability to prove better customer amenities, things like a larger indoor wait facility, things like air conditioning and heating, things like public restrooms, wider sidewalks, more sheltered locations to wait for buses, better signage, better lighting, better security. All these things are things that we envision in the new and improved passenger transfer facility.”

McDaniel said IU has been trying to get a grant to improve the area for the safety of students.

Sophomore Alison Kaiser said the traffic lights would improve her daily ride on the X bus.

Kaiser said she always struggles to get into the parking lot because of the all the drivers going in the opposite direction of her.

Senior Andrea Hera agrees.

“I think it’s good,” Hera said. “I commute every day. It’s hard for students to cross the road.”

Students who use Bloomington Transit are also happy about the improvements.

“If they are making the shelters bigger, it is going to be easier for a lot more people to stand under the shelters because as of right now, when it becomes the main time when people shuttle back and forth, it gets crowded,” said junior Ryan Thiery.

With the rising cost of fuel, more students on campus and people around the community are turning to the Bloomington Transit to move around campus and Bloomington. In 2007, a record 2.7 million riders used the bus system.

“It’s beneficial that this is getting updated so that they can transport everyone back and forth between class,” Thiery said. “We won’t have to stand out in the rain or anything anymore.”

The first installment of the grant is one of four the Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation will receive during the next four years.

McDaniel said he is not sure when the project for the IU Campus Bus Service will begin but said it should begin by next year.

“It’s obviously an important grant for IU and the city of Bloomington because the bus service will go campus-wide and will help the efficiency and the safety of the bus service,” said Hill’s press secretary Kara Seward.

However, none of the federally funded money will go toward new buses or the rising cost of fuel, May said.

“Thanks to a lot of efforts from people like Baron Hill and others, we’ve been replacing buses over the years.” May said. “We’ve been able to find hybrid buses and new diesel buses, and that’s going to continue over the next few years, but this project is strictly for a downtown passenger terminal.”